System Engineer - FAS Applications

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) located in Mons, Belgium, is currently involved in the development of new capabilities for NATO as well as in the support of existing capabilities. In the light of these activities, the JISR Centre is looking for a system engineer with experience in JISR System Engineering and Cloud Activities.

The System Engineer will provide the technical JISR expert subject matter expertise solutions and communication of high-level structures to enable and guide the design and development of integrated solutions that meet current and future business needs.

Changes to service, process, organisation, operating model and other aspects may be required in addition to technology components, and solutions must demonstrate how agreed requirements (such as automation of business processes) are met, any requirements which are not fully met or, and any options or considerations which require a business decision.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

The Engineer will have to resolve tickets covering a wide range of Level 2 and Level 3 activities, for example:

• Install, maintain, monitor and support the JSSC services (Intel-FS, ANB, Release Server, CoreGIS, HMART, CSD IPL/IWS, ICMT, AOSS, NAMIS, NABIS, REACT) mainly in support of Operations, Missions and NATO exercises.
• Provide timely response and resolution to all support tickets (incidents, service requests, changes, internal activities) following the internal processes
• Escalate issues to level 3 support team as appropriate, support in the troubleshooting and debugging of found issues (document and escalate trouble tickets from ITSM into Azure DevOps work items, as well as support in their resolution and testing)
• Offer Subject Matter Expertise for the JSSC applications to the user community and to COIs (supporting the Requests For Information)
• Get involved in User Acceptance Testing for new software releases in both organizing and test execution (supporting the Change Requests)
• Apply patches and install ISR software updates, coordinate outages (according to agreed Approved Service Interruptions, Security Audit Findings, regular software updates)
• Participate in NRF/ARF/Enterprise CABs as needed to support new software releases in the validation and verification process (support to Change Requests)
• Provide support in maintaining the NATO Software Factory infrastructure, user and rights management, software updates and internal activities
• Interface between JSSC applications and inter-operable FASes from other Business Areas
• Participates in on-call support. He/she also adheres to flexible 8 hrs/5 days a week shifts, which may be scheduled on-demand based on operational needs. This scheduling flexibility ensures that the duty activities can start earlier or later in a day, providing consistent and adaptable support in alignment with the organization’s requirements;

Essential Skills and Experience

• Experienced system engineer with proven level 2/level 3 support roles in a multinational and/or military organisation of minimum 5 years in various roles (Windows Server Administration, Windows Client Administration, Active Directory Administration, Network Administrator, Virtualization, IIS web hosting, Linux hosting,
• Linux Administration, Ansible, Containerization)
• Microsoft SQL Server Administration knowledge (installation, configuration, maintenance, backup policies)
• Remote server administration
• Knowledge of DNS, DHCP, WSUS, GPOs
• MS SQL scripting knowledge, data consistency and data clean-up based on consultation with the user community and development team
• Azure Devops experience
• Hardware and software configuration of Server hosting platforms, custom disk configurations with specific storage controllers, RAID configuration, redundancy and safety approach in all levels of designing in implementing of the solutions
• Very good virtualization skills, preferably on vmWare with System Center integration
• Good knowledge of Powershell scripting and/or Python
• Xml file manipulation, xsds validation and maintenance and automation done through Powershell/scripting
• Must have excellent spoken and written English communication and presentation skills, as demonstrated by recent experience (within the past 5 years);
• Must have proficiency in the office Suite, Reporting tools;
• Must have excellent understanding and experience of network communication protocols TCP/IP, OSI layers, Firewalls and Security principles
• Must demonstrate the ability and self-motivation to work on his/her own but must also work well within groups as part of a team;
• Must demonstrate an ability and keen sense for problem-solving.
• Motivated, good communication skills, team player.
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Previous knowledge of NATO FASes constitute and advantage
• Experience in various areas of Software Engineering including:
• Software design, implementation and testing
• Programming languages, techniques and methodologies associated with the duties described above
• Very good knowledge of commonly used standards and best practices for software engineering, including design patterns
• Knowledge/Exposure to technologies like WSO2, Kafka, Apache Camel, Redis, PostGres, Neo4J, Angular, Elastic Search, XSLT, OData
• Java development
• Agile software development methodologies
• Knowledge and experience in:
• Application server technologies
• Multi-tiered, distributed systems
• Service-Oriented Architectures
• Relational data base management systems
• Web authoring, design and administration tools
• Knowledge and experience in: C#, HTML5 and modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks, Web Services
• Previous experience in NATO, FAS support, software lifecycle support, knowledge of NATO policies and process

Working Location

• Mons, Belgium

Working Policy

• On-Site

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance